Of course, the telegram was made without Marshall's knowledge, and although it was not very pleasant to hear, Admiral King was sure that Marshall would make a statement -- he had personally said that he would not be able to defeat all regimental and above on Sal Island within 48 hours, and how many hours had passed? However, because General Kim received Turner's telegram, he thought that he would fight for at least five more days, so he rarely said a fair word for the two army divisions: "The dismissal order will be issued, but give them a chance to make meritorious contributions, anyway, the German army will not be able to escape, so let's fight slowly......"

This slowness dragged on for another five days, and the German army had been compressed into the core position on the island, and the surrounding regiments were all US troops, but in this way, the covering artillery fire and attack planes of the US troops could not be carried out smoothly, because if they were not careful, they would hit their own people, so they could only rely on the army's own artillery fire and attacks to advance gradually, and fought the most brutal positional warfare. www.biquge.info The German army was completely encircled, not only could it not be replenished with ammunition and personnel, but even its medicine was almost exhausted.

Facing the last remaining more than 1,300 people in the encirclement, Link originally wanted to give up and lead his troops to surrender, but to his surprise, no one agreed with this idea, and everyone gritted their teeth and stated that they planned to fight to the end and never surrender. Even more unexpectedly, just when he thought that the Führer's support had finally been cut off, Machar suddenly sent a telegram that the fleet had marched towards Cape Verde and that reinforcements were expected to arrive within five days.

As soon as these two pieces of news came out, the morale of the defenders was greatly boosted, and they actually gritted their teeth and persevered, and the morale seemed to be even higher than that of the American army.

The core position of Sal Island is actually a continuous permanent fortification based on a simplified version of the anti-aircraft tower, in addition to the buildings on the ground, there is also a set of semi-underground permanent fortifications consisting of 1 main fort and 8 sub-forts. The main fort has heavy machine guns and 88mm anti-tank fire, the sub-fort and side-firing fort have light machine guns and 75mm anti-tank fire, surrounded by a total of two layers of communication trenches, the Germans have a large number of K98 rifles, G43 rifles, STG43 assault rifles and MG43, behind the bunker there are also a large number of mortars, plus the German infantry used iron fist rockets, forming an impermeable dense network of fire.

The main fort is divided into three floors, the top floor is an open building, linked to the base of the anti-aircraft tower, which is mainly used for suppressive fire; The second floor is all underground from the beginning, and inside are the shelters, ammunition and grain warehouses; The third floor does not go straight down, but is dug diagonally into a basement to become the entire core headquarters.

The upper part of each fortress is made of dismantled old rails to form a skeleton, arranged in rows layer by layer and covered with 30mm thick steel plates, and then poured concrete, the overall thickness is mostly more than 70 cm, and then covered with soil, more than 1 meter thick, 150mm caliber below the direct hit of the artillery unscathed, the exposed part of the ground is filled with sea sand with a large number of discarded gasoline barrels after a large number of use, and 30mm steel plates are added between barrels and barrels. It is nothing more than that Japan can use large logs from local materials, and Germany does not have so many logs, but there is no shortage of rails (H-beams).

In fact, Cape Verde was not the most heavily defended place for the German army, and some of the fortresses in the Azores were directly dismantled from Italy and Germany with steel plates for the main armor of battleships, which not only included some components of battleships converted into aircraft carriers, but also steel plates that were pre-cut for the construction of H-class battleships but were not actually used. These goods were originally intended to be used for the Atlantic barrier, but Hoffman's attitude was clear: instead of defending the endless coastline of Western Europe, it was better to concentrate materials and labor for island defense, so Cape Verde and the Azores received a large amount of supplies, and now the construction of the Atlantic barrier is more extensive and less complete than it was historically.

After this arrangement, medium and large-caliber howitzers are slightly damaged by both direct destruction and concussion. Once the artillery stopped, the perimeter of the fortress was covered with cobweb-like communication trenches connecting the main positions to quickly deploy troops, and there were a large number of foxholes around the side of the communication trenches, where some German soldiers were lurking, ready to give heavy blows to the Americans with iron fists or grenades at any time.

It was also very difficult to approach the fortress system, there were 3 barbed wire fences and 2 deer barricades in front of the fortress position, and there were mines in it. And the German infantry firepower happened to restrain the American troops to death, In addition to the 12.7mm Browning heavy machine gun with some advantages, the U.S. military is inferior to its opponents in the rest of the field: the light machine gun is not as good as the MG42, which can continuously fire tens of thousands of rounds of bullets and remain stable, and the accuracy and power of the K98 exceed the M1 Garand of the U.S. Army, about 400 meters of shooting, G43 is not lagging behind, intensive firefights within 200 meters, STG43 completely eats the Thomson submachine gun of the U.S. Army to death, and when fighting at close range within 100 meters or even 50 meters, the German army's endless iron fist wants to kill the Americans.

The U.S. military undoubtedly had an advantage in Bazooka and recoilless guns, but those things were too bulky and bulky, and the target was very obvious after launching, and they couldn't suppress the Germans from a distance, and they were directly killed by German snipers when they got close. And the US tanks are not powerful at this time, not to mention that no tank can afford direct fire from 88mm guns, even 75mm anti-tank guns are more than enough to kill M4\M6 tanks. The Germans skillfully used the last two Tiger tanks as fixed fire points, and used the Tiger's precision sniping to reimburse many armored targets, and when the American troops dragged in the 90mm anti-aircraft guns in a hurry to open fire, they were shocked to find that the German tanks were hiding behind reinforced concrete fortifications more than 1 meter thick, which was of no avail.

The most desperate thing for the US military is that the whole set of fortresses is linked to the air defense tower, although the destroyed air defense tower has lost its combat effectiveness, but still protects the fortress defense system with its strong body, and it is impossible to destroy the fortress fortifications with long-range heavy fire without completely destroying the air defense tower, and the method of manual blasting must first solve the fortress defenders, so a dead knot is formed here: if the defenders are not solved, the fortress cannot be opened, and the defenders cannot be completely solved without blowing up the fortress.

It is also a way to trap the opponent, but it is a pity that the US military does not have so much time, and in the end, the two US military divisions can only use the most traditional and bloody method -- filling with human lives and fighting for the past inch by inch, but this style of play is obviously not applicable to the US army, and there is a big difference in the tactical quality of the two sides, but the side with a high combat level still occupies favorable terrain and strong fortifications, which is simply a hard bone that cannot be gnawed. Incendiary bombs and fire-breathing tanks have been tried, the former is very ineffective, and the latter is directly hit into a fireball by enemy anti-tank fire at a long distance, and can only give up after several tests.

If the poison gas bomb were to be useful, the Americans would probably not hesitate to use it, but first, the troops did not carry this "sharp weapon," and second, because of Germany's "achievements" in the field of poison gas, the United States did not dare to easily open this Pandora's box -- if German bombers dropped poison gas bombs on the east coast at that time, the world would have to be turned upside down.

After so many days, the U.S. military has paid more than 3,000 casualties, at least the perimeter of the defense line has been completely cleaned, and the mines and barbed wire have been cleared; At the same time, in addition to the bloody battle, the outer edge of the German fortress group was completely blocked, in other words, the Germans were either all killed in battle, or surrendered, and there was no third way to go; Last but not least, having consumed a large amount of ammunition and supplies for the Germans, and now the defenders could only hold out for 5 days with ammunition and supplies for 10 days, Link decided to lead his troops to surrender once they ran out of food or ammunition - the soldiers had done enough for the Third Reich and the Führer, and he wanted to give them a way to live.

And Admiral Kim said this for a good reason, the naval guns are also close to running out of ammunition for continuous fire, which can neither provide support nor defense, and the fleet should certainly have freedom of action.